Episode104
I'm not going to Weep for your Wall, (Harolds of Yaw) Night number 3 (6) of the Epic Final Battle to save the Multiverse from the soul-rending tyranny of the Reavers. Strategic re-cap: * 3 of 4 'Dark-Shard' Crystals destroyed, the 4th was rolling around on the floor under the upper left Brain-Node after Pete blasted it free with an epic trick-shot disarm. * One of 4 Brain-Nodes shorn of its Reflective Coating, but with only a minor dent in its Soul-Skins even after repeated barrages from Pete's Brilliant Super-Volley Cluster Munition Prototype Rounds. * Two other Brain-Nodes lacking RF but with reflective coating intact. * 4 Harolds of Yaw still in action, casting various 'fuck-you' Reaver spells of epic bullshittery on an on-going basis. * Apparently unlimited squads of Reaver Assassins having their way with our now un-armoured AC-build party members (Joe edit: actually, mainly just Pete). The Defend-build PCs are a little better off, but with the Progenitor Anti-Reaver Field destroyed they're now increasingly being forced to burn actions on Acrobatic Defends. * Our Lesser-Fister minions have been putting up a heroic effort against the Reaver Assassins (none have died yet!), but they're steadily taking damage. Unless we handle our shit in short order they are going to start dropping like flies, which could leave us short-handed at the end when we will need them the most. As we picked up the action, Pete was in desperate straits, one hit away from being knocked out of the fight, (Kiwi's attempts to cast a party-heal having been countered by one of the Harolds last time). In desperation, he burned two of his remaining three 0-Speed Factor Skill Actions to fire up his Jump Field, teleporting over closer to Kiwi, and also activating his Souldar-fooling Displacer Field, deploying four duplicates of himself to confuse and befuddle the enemy! This bought him exactly two segments, as the Assassins who had been harrying him immediately closed again, and used their area effect hammer blows to destroy all of the duplicates immediately. Captain Joe maneuvered at the bottom end of the map, firing off an effective LRM volley at one of the Brain-Nodes but then getting pinned down by several Reaver Assassins. Meanwhile, Kiwi carefully calculates the optimal action economy for letting Pete die versus using the mighty dragon eyelash gifted by Speri Pentari Ferious, the God beast creator of all Treewee. With a sigh, Kiwi starts the Speed Factor to activate the eyelash, using the arcane power of quickdraw nethersack style. It was a bit of a gamble (what if we later wish we had saved it?), but the hope was that Kiwi would be able to fire off his group healing action without Reaver interference within the dragon sanctuary goodness. Luckily Captain Joe turned out to be just inside the range of the effect (Joe edit: possibly due in part to a half-move with Xershaw's Mantle, although the extensive range was the main factor)! Unfortunately, the not-time thusly spent burned off some Segments of most of the group's Light-Infusion Nanites (the +50 RF being the only thing even remotely keeping us in this fight), but we were able to time the events so that we all-re-upped on them right before Kiwi cast the heal, just as the refuge bubble collapsed, so that we all popped back into time & space fully buffed and ready to dive back into the fray. Oz spent the time reflecting on the situation with his mastery of Reaver Lore which revealed that we need to be careful about the timing of popping Yaw out of the brain-nodes when using the prism/light. Pete also used this opportunity to ramp up his Wall-Bot's Speed Factor to deploy around him as soon as we reappeared, forming a temporary protective cocoon around him. Also, Kiwi was able to take advantage of the lack of Reaver Counter-Spells to cast his Arch-Gaze Combining Spell (which, as it turned out, became important even sooner than we had hoped). It was at this point that we made an important observation: some of the Harolds that had been caught in the blasts from Oz's Light-Miracle infused area effect salvos appeared to have taken damage. This would imply that they were not protected by soul-skins, (which we had assumed that they were, because Reavers). Perhaps they had burned them out as part of the Ritual they were performing before we so rudely interrupted them? Regardless, this was a huge bonus for us, leaving them vulnerable to be spiked with a Cleansing Prism. As Oz, Joe, and rest of the Fisters tag-alongs launched into the Speed Factor for the Super Epic Gaze of Righteously Wrathful Righteousness, Pete unlimbered his custom-built Transdimensional Cleansing Prism Projectile Rifle, and successfully tagged one of the Harolds. Because Oz was able to use his Yaw-link grotesque symbiosis with Yaw to see how many additional Reavers were beaming into space adjacent to the Dragon-Mother, we elected not to activate the Transdimensional Slipstream Generators, as we didn't want to destroy too many prematurely and jinx the end-game plan, such as it is (sorry, Suicide Fleet!). Nonetheless, the Harold had little chance of saving against the combined wrath of the full Fister Gaze, and was utterly immolated the following segment when we let loose. The other three Harolds were likewise vaporized, but the Assassins managed to shield themselves from the worst of the blast although they appeared to be damaged nonetheless, (let's hope they can't shield themselves from the big final blast!). Captain Joe engaged in the agonizingly slow process Battlefield Repair on his damaged Harvester of Sorrow dreadnought, eventually succeeding in repairing it to full AC (its RF, sadly, is now more fragile than ever). Pete then turned his attention to the last remaining 'Dark-Shard' crystal, but just as he was about to strike it he remembered an obscure passage of the Prophesy which referenced a "Healing Nexus". If the Dark-Shard was in fact a Healing Nexus, it could be leveraged into allowing one to Heal one additional time in Combat! With this in mind, Pete went back to trying to take down the soul-skin on the non-reflective Brain Node. Unfortunately, this was the one that had had a damage reflecting spell cast on it by one of the Harolds. More unfortunately, Pete fired off three criticals out of eight flechettes, all of which were reflected back onto his Deployable Cover, leaving it nearly destroyed before the Reavers even started to absorb it, (which they immediately came over to do anyway). Another missile volley from Captain Joe, this time SRMs, had little effect due to missile chaff. He did manage to get off a fire suppression SRM to remove his Burn condition. Mainly a recovery round for him as Kiwi healed DC and most Bleed, he repaired his dreadnought and put out the fires. Just a depleted RF, Bleed 16 and a -40 to next Save remaining to trouble him! Oz managed to score first blood when the Assassins beamed out and left their deployable reaver turret behind. It only managed two shots on Oz but scored critical hits both times, (PD 10 each - ouch!), which was enough for Oz to decide it needed to die quickly/hard. Not surprisingly, (in hindsight), when destroyed, it exploded in a cloud of Critical-Hitting-AOE-PD-Grievous-Wounding-Bitch-Assery. At first, it looked like Oz was going to take a nasty head-wound but he managed to dive backward at the last moment and only lost a few toes, (two Bennies but so worth it!). As we finished up the night, Kiwi was trying to grab the Healing Nexus Crystal before any of the Assassins could get it, Pete was cowering inside his now extremely flimsy wall, Joe was trying to survive the Assassin onslaught and pierce the remaining reflective coated Brain-Nodes, and Oz, (in between additional epic poses for his trading card series with O-Pee-Chee Intergalactic), was standing carefully on one foot with a dangerous -and slightly red- glint in his eyes. Back to Space Junk Log Category:Space Junk